What changes does Adspert do in my AdWords account?

There are 2 types of changes that the system does in an optimized account: initial ones to start the optimization (cf. 1) and regular ones for the bidding process (cf. 2).

1. Changes needed for the optimization to be accurate

To ensure a successful optimization, Adspert automatically adjusts settings in your AdWords account. Adspert does almost everything for you. Only automated rules cannot be adjusted by Adspert. Please deactivate automated rules in your AdWords account manually, this allows Adspert to reach the best possible optimization goal.

Also make sure to switch off the optimization by another bid management tool before you start using Adspert.

1.1 Setting ad delivery to "accelerated"

By selecting “accelerated delivery”, Adspert adjusts bids automatically in a way that you will take part in Google auctions optimally during the whole day.

When using the option "standard", meaning the decision to evenly distribute the budget across the entire day, Adspert cannot exhaust the following possibilities:

1. Identify the optimal bid for every keyword.

2. Bid down non-performing keywords.

3.Use the available budget for well-performing keywords and generate more clicks for them.

With the help of the standard ad delivery one may achieve an even budget distribution but one will never know if one could have gained clicks more cost-effectively and thereby, could have used the remaining budget to take part in further auctions. In this way, a minimisation of costs, which is an important part of the performance increase, is impossible.

In case the setting “accelerated delivery” leads to the fact that the daily budget cannot be distributed over the whole day, Adspert decreases bids in a way that the budget is distributed evenly across the entire day as well as the most cost-effective clicks are generated.

1.2 Setting ad rotation to "optimize for conversions"

By choosing “optimize for conversions” Adspert concentrates on your ads that get the most conversions like purchases or sign-ups. This is a quick win for your account performance.

If you wish to A/B test your ads or would like to use a different ad rotation setting, please let us know and we will turn the setting off.

1.3 Turning off conversion optimizer and auto CPC

Please let us know if you use the conversion optimizer for your AdWords account and don't turn it off independently. Adspert takes care of it to guarantee a smooth shift.

Adspert needs to turn off the conversion optimizer with help of special algorithms to be able to set bids. Google doesn’t reveal max. CPC bids set by the conversion optimizer. That’s why Adspert needs to draw its conclusion from available KPIs to bid correctly initially.

In order to advertise successfully in the Google Display Network, Adspert needs to do two adjustments. By setting the placement targeting to “bid only”, Adspert is able to set bids. At it, your targeting options are untouched.

With the option “enable bid modifiers”, Adspert is able to set different bids for websites – high bids for websites receiving a lot and well performing traffic, low bids for websites with low or bad performing traffic.

2. Changes done regularly for bid optimization purposes

2.1 Changing CPC bids

CPC bids get changed every day for the campaigns you choose to optimize. This is the primary task for Adspert and this is the main way how Adspert achieves its results. CPC bids are set for ad group defaults as well as criteria such as keywords, placements, Product Listing Ads (PLAs) and Google Shopping product groups.

2.2 Adding keywords

Every day Adspert checks the search term queries of your keywords and fishes those out, which have generated conversions but are not part of your ad groups. Keywords found by Adspert are always added as exact match and always relate to the searches your users made when they clicked your ads and converted. This option can be deactivated or set to manual mode. In manual mode Adspert makes suggestions while you make the decisions if and where to insert the newly found keywords.

There are no keyword additions for the following campaign types since it is needless in terms of content: Dynamic Search Ads (DSA), Google Shopping, Product Listing Ads (deprecated).

2.3 Pausing keywords

Pausing keywords happens only in extreme cases, where a keyword creates considerable long term losses. Such a keyword will be first bid down to the smallest currency unit. If it continues to create losses, the system may decide to pause the keyword.

2.4 Adding placements (Display campaigns only)

Adding placements to the managed placement group is a vital part of the optimization for Display campaigns. Placements are locations on the Google Display Network where your ads can appear, for instance websites and apps that partner with Google to show ads.

There are millions of placements. Adspert can set a different CPC bid for each of them and get the best performance out of your campaign.

How does the selection of placements work?

Particular well-performing placements or placements with a high volume are added by Adspert to set separate bids.

If a domain (i.e. www.myshop.com) has an adequate high volume even singular URLs of this domain (i.e. www.myshop.com/electronics or www.myshop.com/homewares) are added by Adspert.

In rare cases, if a domain or URL does not perform well, it will be excluded.How does this effect the targeting goal of my Display campaign?

Adspert does not change anything on your targeting settings for your Display campaigns but assures that the bid management tool is able to bid on placements and set bids. All other criteria are optimized by bid adjustments.

Recognizing seasonalities is one of Adspert’s big strengths. Conversion rates in your campaigns vary throughout the week as well as depending on the time. This is a result of varying user behavior. By using bid modifiers for schedule, we are able to precisely pick what times bidding should be more aggressive and when to let competitors ahead. These bid modifiers are re-calculated and set every day.

If you are using custom scheduling for your ads (e.g. you advertise only in the mornings), we advise you to turn this option off in the Adspert settings.

2.7 Setting ad group targeting bid modifiers (Display and RLSA)

Bidding on placements causes other targeting methods to lose their bids and use the standard bid instead. In order to counter that, Adspert enables bid modifiers for each other targeting type you may have in your ad group. This way we can still bid on placements but we also make sure that for example the interest groups you target receive proper exposure according to their historical performance.

Remarketing lists for search (RLSA) also automatically will receive bid modifiers if the respective campaigns are optimized by Adspert.

If you would rather set those modifiers yourself, please let us know.

2.8 Turning off enhanced CPCs on campaign level

Because Google changes bids intransparent through enhanced CPCs, Adspert is not able to clearly observe these effects. Therefore Adspert deactivates eCPCs by default. Adspert can refrain from doing so. In that case please contact support@adspert.de.